...Already Tired of the Next President, Making an Official Candidate Endorsement, and Posting a Political Poem
Posted by Steven Wingate at 5/18/2008 11:13 AM and is filed under Barack Obama,left-ism,2008 Presidential Race,Poetry,Politics,fAIlUre,rebellion 
I’m not much of a TV-head; most of my exposure to the medium comes from watching sports events (yes, I do that—see my posting How it Feels to Be an Artsy/Intellectual Type who Actually Loves Sports) or from passing glances that occur elsewhere than my home. The other day, for instance, I saw the news and heard all three of our presidential candidates talking in the space of two minutes. Blah! Blather! Undignified, like teenagers in a junior high popularity contest. I’m already sick of the voice of our next president, even if it’s Obama. Yes, I just said that. Sure, I want him to win; sure I’ll be trying to get every lefty I know to vote for him; sure, I’ll be full of hope on election eve, like so many other lefties like me, that he will be a sane voice of change in America and kick the damn moneychangers out of the temple.
Whoops, mixing religion and politics here. I mean “kick the damn lobbyists out of the White House and the Capitol.” How’s that? Better?
But the comparison worked, didn’t it?
And if Obama wins, I’ll be jumping for joy at the prospect of a relative outsider cleaning the accumulated years of muck that encrust the Augean stables of our national government. But really, I’m sick even of his voice. Maybe it’s the things he has to say on the campaign trail that turn me off, and if/when he becomes president I’ll actually be able to listen to him. Maybe I’m tuning him out to not get my hopes up. Maybe eight years of turning off the radio or TV upon hearing the voice of our current president has just got me trained like a Pavlovian dog to not listen to the voice of anyone who strives for the office.
You’ve heard this all before from people far more informed about politics than I am. But you haven’t heard this poem before, set in a future America after the moneychangers have been kicked out of the temple. (Oops! I did it again!) I ask that you read it aloud so that you can be the first kid on your block to hear it.
HERO OF THE FAILED REBELLION
In the new city he sits on a park bench
and traces with his toes in wet soil
his former plans to shake our moribund nation
of its false patriotism
of its complacencies
of is shameless love of self masquerading as concern
for the fate of the earth
and the fate of the poor
and the fate of each indivisible soul.
Women in this new city can tell he has a past
and ask him about that past
before they dare to touch the visage
that knows so much more
and feels so much more deeply
than they.
“I had dreams,” he tells them, shrugging.
Because to describe the breaking of his dreams
would only break them again
before they gain enough form
to galvanize the new city
with a glandular lust for revolution
that only his voice can inspire. Alone at night
the friends who hide him watch the TV news.
The latest demagogue enters the room:
His loyal subjects rise to applaud him;
his detractors’ intestines moan with rage
and the hero’s eyes shy away to a corner of the room.
“Look at that clown on his throne,” the friends say.
“A fool, a nobody, a dolt, a disgrace.
You could have given us hope. You
could have taken this blandness,
this un-congealed mass of sorrow and pride,
this pit of civic self-abortion and suicide by decree
and given us all
what we have been cheated out of
by ourselves.”
Whoops, mixing religion and politics here. I mean “kick the damn lobbyists out of the White House and the Capitol.” How’s that? Better?
But the comparison worked, didn’t it?
And if Obama wins, I’ll be jumping for joy at the prospect of a relative outsider cleaning the accumulated years of muck that encrust the Augean stables of our national government. But really, I’m sick even of his voice. Maybe it’s the things he has to say on the campaign trail that turn me off, and if/when he becomes president I’ll actually be able to listen to him. Maybe I’m tuning him out to not get my hopes up. Maybe eight years of turning off the radio or TV upon hearing the voice of our current president has just got me trained like a Pavlovian dog to not listen to the voice of anyone who strives for the office.
You’ve heard this all before from people far more informed about politics than I am. But you haven’t heard this poem before, set in a future America after the moneychangers have been kicked out of the temple. (Oops! I did it again!) I ask that you read it aloud so that you can be the first kid on your block to hear it.
HERO OF THE FAILED REBELLION
In the new city he sits on a park bench
and traces with his toes in wet soil
his former plans to shake our moribund nation
of its false patriotism
of its complacencies
of is shameless love of self masquerading as concern
for the fate of the earth
and the fate of the poor
and the fate of each indivisible soul.
Women in this new city can tell he has a past
and ask him about that past
before they dare to touch the visage
that knows so much more
and feels so much more deeply
than they.
“I had dreams,” he tells them, shrugging.
Because to describe the breaking of his dreams
would only break them again
before they gain enough form
to galvanize the new city
with a glandular lust for revolution
that only his voice can inspire. Alone at night
the friends who hide him watch the TV news.
The latest demagogue enters the room:
His loyal subjects rise to applaud him;
his detractors’ intestines moan with rage
and the hero’s eyes shy away to a corner of the room.
“Look at that clown on his throne,” the friends say.
“A fool, a nobody, a dolt, a disgrace.
You could have given us hope. You
could have taken this blandness,
this un-congealed mass of sorrow and pride,
this pit of civic self-abortion and suicide by decree
and given us all
what we have been cheated out of
by ourselves.”
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